Ilan Stavans on His New Books, Latino Life at Amherst and Beyond

Submitted on Friday, 4/27/2012, at 12:30 PM

Interview by Peter Rooney

Ilan Stavans, described by his father in his most recent book as “muyprolífico,” is certainly living up to that billing this month.

Return to Centro Histórico: A Mexican Jew Looks for His Roots (Rutgers), a photo-laden personal exploration of Mexico City’s downtown area, has just been published, along with the 15th anniversary edition of Latino USA: A Cartoon History(Basic Books), updated with a new chapter. Not to be overlooked is the paperback release of The FSG Book of Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry (FSG), a compilation of verse in Spanish and English, with Stavans as editor and Amherst College poet Richard Wilbur among the translators. Stavans also is preparing an exhibition about his fotonovela Once@9:53am, an account of a devastating 1994 terrorist attack against the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 and left hundreds injured. That exhibit opens Sunday, April 29, at The National Yiddish Book Center (1021 West Street in Amherst).

August 28, 2006 Director of Media Relations413/542-8417AMHERST, Mass.—Susannah Heschel, the Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, will speak on “From Theory to Reality: Implications of Feminism for Judaism” at 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 6, in the McCaffrey Room in the Keefe Campus Center at Amherst College. Sponsored by the Willis D. Wood Fund and the department of religion at Amherst, Heschel’s talk is free and open to the public.